Free will? I dont think so

[Freddy]

One question we can ask is why do natural things routinely act in a specific fashion? Why are electrons naturally attracted to protons?

My point exactly. I know what the standard answer will be when the question is asked. But why make it so monstrously complex?

 

[Veritas6]

Not quite. Why it works is anyone’s guess. The laws of matter after the BB turned out that way.

What makes them clearly superior is that they can be measured, quantified and - most importantly - observed, either directly or indirectly.

Why is it an unimportant question? Why is it superior that something can be measured? Can we measure and observe truth?

No, they’ve asked why too. Depends on the spins of their constituent quarks, it turns out.

Why do the quarks spin that way?

 

[Veritas6]

My point exactly. I know what the standard answer will be when the question is asked. But why make it so monstrously complex?

What do you mean?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

My point exactly. I know what the standard answer will be when the question is asked. But why make it so monstrously complex?

What do you mean?

‘Who can know the mind of God’.

If you point out that something that God is meant to have done makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, that’s the cut ‘n’ paste response. It’s the religious equivalent of ‘I haven’t got the foggiest idea’.

 

[Veritas6]

It appears entirely arbitrary. Why not just make a water molecule?

Yeah, you don’t need philosophy to work it out how chemistry work. But when you start asking why it works as it does, it makes zero sense to suggest it was designed that way.

So if something is arbitrary is it worthwhile to think about? I don’t have an answer why God would make 4 bonds, but does that make it unimportant?

Aristotelians use philosophy to uncover more about God, but we can only know what God is NOT, not what God is. We use our sense experience to understand the world, not so much answer why God might do something.

 

[Veritas6]

If you point out that something that God is meant to have done makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, that’s the cut ‘n’ paste response. It’s the religious equivalent of ‘I haven’t got the foggiest idea’.

Here’s one question we can ask: does change occur?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

It appears entirely arbitrary. Why not just make a water molecule?

Yeah, you don’t need philosophy to work it out how chemistry work. But when you start asking why it works as it does, it makes zero sense to suggest it was designed that way.

So if something is arbitrary is it worthwhile to think about? I don’t have an answer why God would make 4 bonds, but does that make it unimportant?

There is no answer as to why God would make it all so incredibly complex and interdependent. When Democritus suggested atomism then that would have been fine. That would have been a good explantion for God’s design. But what we know now isn’t. It actually seems perverse to want it to be so galactically complex as opposed to blazingly simple.

I mean, God actually decided that the only way He was going to get water was to make specific molecules with specific attributes that would bond under specific conditions. Instead of just making water.

It’s the same problem with the universe itself. When it was just a small planet and a few pretty lights in the sky then it made sense. It made less and less sense as we found out more. And now to me, when we know it’s so big we’ll never even see past a certain point let alone access it, then it makes no sense.

If you think it’s all entirely reasonable, then fine. It makes not the slightest sense to me.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

If you point out that something that God is meant to have done makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, that’s the cut ‘n’ paste response. It’s the religious equivalent of ‘I haven’t got the foggiest idea’.

Here’s one question we can ask: does change occur?

I’m not in the mood for dancing. If you think that the cosmological argument proves God then just say so. And if that was your intention, please note that it has zero connection with what I have just posted.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

If you don’t care, you make one call. If you do, you make another.

The above describes that the decision to change one’s internal disposition is necessarily a free choice. Externals may influence that decision but one decides whether one “cares” or not. To think otherwise would be to deny self-autonomy.

We can express choices. Nobody denies that. Vanilla or guilty. That implies self autonomy. The ability to make that choice. Your self autonomy renders you (to a certain extent) culpable. You can be held to account.

Can you change that choice under the same conditions? I have denied that that can happen in every post I have made and have yet to get a response as to how it could be accomplished. If it could be done it would indicate free will. That your will is free from the effects of differing conditions.

The argument is the same as the one I’ve been hearing for years. That as God is omniscient He knows what choices we will make. But that we are responsible for making them. Now God could rerun the tape again and we’d make the same choice. Why wouldn’t we? He could produce an exact copy of this existence and we’d make the same choice. Why wouldn’t we? Can you call that free will? How could that be possible if we are contrained to the same choices under the same conditions?

But are we responsible? Well, if we aren’t then we can’t be punished for immoral choices. And if we are then we have autonomy.

By the way, it wasn’t a double negative.

 

[o_mlly]

Your self autonomy renders you (to a certain extent) culpable.

That’s better; very Catholic. The extent that one is free to act directly determines one’s culpability.

Can you change that choice under the same conditions?

We’ve beaten this dead horse but for the record: if one does not have a change of heart, an internal conversion, then under the same external conditions that one would make the same choice. But if one has a conversion of heart then under the same external conditions that one will choose differently.

How could that be possible if we are contrained to the same choices under the same conditions?

Conversion is a process, not an event. Vice can only become virtue through the repeated act of choosing correctly. Virtue is a habit.

But are we responsible? Well, if we aren’t then we can’t be punished for immoral choices. And if we are then we have autonomy.

Fromm’s Escape from Freedom is not a narrative but an examination of the psychoses that peoples suffer because they deny their free will. For instance, the personality disorders of masochism and sadism develop because the masochist seeks to affirm his denial of his free will by domination, by being subject to another. This disordered relationship can only be fulfilled by the sadist whose disordered sense of identity by domination is fulfilled by the masochist. Both depend upon the other to fulfill their mutually psychotic personalities, personalities that deny free will. Free will can be, but is not necessarily, quite lonely.

By the way, it wasn’t a double negative.

Count the negatives: one, two. Now think math.

By the way, the My Lai marines were not at all like the guards at Auschwitz.

 

[Freddy]

Count the negatives: one, two. Now think math.

By the way, the My Lai marines were not at all like the guards at Auschwitz.

You don’t think a gramatically correct sentence like this can’t have two negatives?

And no, the examples I gave all had differences. Intentionally so.The marines reverted to our less impressive selves in very short order and without being ordered to. And please believe me, this wasn’t a dig against Americans. I could have given similar examples from 19th century Australia (plus contemporary claims against Australian soldiers in Afghanistan). My Lai I thought would be more familiar.

 

[Freddy]

…if one does not have a change of heart, an internal conversion, then under the same external conditions that one would make the same choice. But if one has a conversion of heart then under the same external conditions that one will choose differently.

So you claim that you can have a change of heart for no reason. Guilty and then not guilty perhaps. Why the two verdicts? Why, you just changed your mind.

What caused the first verdict? What caused the change to the second? If there are no external circumstances involved, what’s to stop a change back to the original choice?

If you say that the second followed a better understanding of the evidence then you’d have to say that the first was a mistake. Then you are saying that free will is only exhibited if you don’t really know what you are doing in the first instance.

 

[EndTimes]

I can prove I have free will.

I decided I’d have 2 doughnuts this morning.
Prove I didn’t.

Can even Hume beat a dead horse and prove the horse is still alive at the same time…

 

[o_mlly]

You don’t think a gramatically correct sentence like this can’t have two negatives?

I didn’t write that there was any grammatical error. For clarity’s sake, I rewrote the equivalent sentence after cancelling out the double negative.

And no, the examples I gave all had differences.

The My Lai marines were acting both illegally and immorally. The guards at Auschwitz were acting legally but immorally. The guards at Auschwitz tried to escape their freedom; the marines at My Lai, unfortunately, acted on theirs.

So you claim that you can have a change of heart for no reason.

Possibly, but one ought not change one’s disposition on feelings alone. Some do change their hearts from feelings without a sign-off from their intellect. Feelings or passions move us to change our hearts but they can often be misguiding. The intellect ought to be our passions gate-keeper to affirm the feeling is, or is not, reasonable.

What caused the first verdict? What caused the change to the second? If there are no external circumstances involved, what’s to stop a change back to the original choice?

A change in disposition is entirely possible through introspection alone. Private prayers, meditations, and contemplation are methods to modify one’s interiority. For instance, through prayer one is able to forgive a trespasser upon realizing that he is a trespasser himself in need of forgiveness. Before his change of heart, he sentenced or willed the trespasser to isolation. Now, he wills to engage the trespasser.

 

[Freddy]

A change in disposition is entirely possible through introspection alone. Private prayers, meditations, and contemplation are methods to modify one’s interiority. For instance, through prayer one is able to forgive a trespasser upon realizing that he is a trespasser himself in need of forgiveness. Before his change of heart, he sentenced or willed the trespasser to isolation. Now, he wills to engage the trespasser.

So the first choice was wrong.

And I never said nothing about double negatives. That’s a double negative. Change them in a gramatically correct statement and you change the meaning.

 

[o_mlly]

And I never said nothing about double negatives. That’s a double negative. Change them in a gramatically correct statement and you change the meaning.

So’s this.

The fact that we don’t realise we don’t have free will is the normal state of affairs.

Count 'em, Fred – one, two: that’s a double! And, unlike the idiomatic double negative, correcting your ambiguous use of two negatives does not change your meaning.

 

[nicholasG]

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”

This says everything about the nature of God.
This says nothing about the nature of God.
This IS God.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

And I never said nothing about double negatives. That’s a double negative. Change them in a gramatically correct statement and you change the meaning.

So’s this.

The fact that we don’t realise we don’t have free will is the normal state of affairs.

Count 'em, Fred – one, two: that’s a double! And, unlike the idiomatic double negative, correcting your ambiguous use of two negatives does not change your meaning.

So ‘we do realise we do have free will’ is the same as ‘we don’t realise we don’t have it’.

I’ve got to say Good grief again…

 

[valencia]

@aitapyh @latin Freedom: Is everything that happens decided by God in advance? - Taizé

 

[Veritas6]

I’m not in the mood for dancing. If you think that the cosmological argument proves God then just say so. And if that was your intention, please note that it has zero connection with what I have just posted.

I don’t tend to assume God exists unless it can be proven logically. I’m showing you where most Aristotelians start when they reason about the world. This is a stepwise building of understanding. We typically can identify something here and now and reason back to uncover what God might be.

You are having difficulty understanding why God might do something, I don’t think anyone can say why God might do something specifically. We can only know what God is NOT, not what God is.